cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Thoughts about Room Scale VR

HiThere_
Superstar
You need roughly 1m x 1m to stand still holding a gamepad, while being able to rotate 360°

You need an extra ~0.5m clearance on all sides to stretch your arms out if you're going to use 6D hand controllers, so that's 2m x 2m for a standing up experience with 6D hand controllers.

If you want to be able to walk 1m in each direction, then you need a 3m x 3m room (unless you want to keep your controllers stuck to your body).

But 1m is nothing so you really want at least 2m in each direction, which requires a 4m x 4m room.

And most users don't even have a 3m x 3m empty space to dedicate to VR, and probably ten times less then that have a 4m x 4m empty space.

You may think requiring 2m x 2m (from floor to ceiling) for just a 360° standing up experience is stretching it, but truth is my own space is roughly a 1.8m x 1.8 space and before I knew it I found myself both bending forward a bit on top of stretching my arm out as far as I could, which resulted in me banging my hand controller into furniture, so that's an extra 0.1 m missing on each side and 2m x 2m is in fact just barely enough for and adult.

Assuming most users will have to clear up just to achieve a full 2m x 2m empty space right next to their PC just to pull off that kind of standing up VR, then financially speaking that just doesn't leave much room for... room scale VR.

Meaning that outside of an impressive but misleading 4m x 4m demonstration booth, what makes more sense is developing motion sickness free hardware and software mechanics for creating unlimited movement within a 2m x 2m space.
21 REPLIES 21

brantlew
Adventurer

Cyril said:


Meaning that outside of an impressive but misleading 4m x 4m demonstration booth, what makes more sense is developing motion sickness free hardware and software mechanics for creating unlimited movement within a 2m x 2m space.


Outside of some very specific content, you need all that stuff for 4x4 as well.  You can make an argument that everything from 2x2m and greater is all of the same category until you reach sizes that facilitate redirected walking.

edmg
Trustee
And, don't forget that most game developers go for the biggest market, so the majority of 'room scale' games are designed to be playable standing in one spot. Hence the huge list of 'stand here while zombies run at you' games on Steam.

HiThere_
Superstar
Well yes, my point is that if room scale requires 4x4 rooms to take off the market isn't small as much as it is insignificant.

At
4x4 (which is 3x3 walking space and an extra + 0.5m for arm movement
only on every side), I believe you do start having enough space to move
your body around, such as playing dodge ball, moving behind cover,
boxing, fencing, walking around a virtual table game... Which is
specific content, but at least there can be a lot of it made.

But
one of the reasons Kinect failed is because it required too much space,
and even limited room scale VR requires at least twice as much space...

And
another reason Kinect failed might be that most people didn't want to be moving around too much to begin with, and even redirected
walking isn't going to solve that.

I found an interesting picture about this topic I'll share here :


I keep spotting articles about the CV1 webcam having an undisclosed width of only 1.5m (5 feet) , which is less then my arm span, but I feel my own CV1 webcam can track more width then that.

Pablito
Heroic Explorer
"Room scale,"... the gimmick that wont make it to next Christmas.  The reason... "Virtuix Omni."

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
I guess we get to bump this thread next Christmas. What happens if roomscale makes it beyond that date? We making a wager, or is this pretend time?

Pablito
Heroic Explorer
How bout this, if anyone cares at all by then, you win.  Fair enough?

Pablito
Heroic Explorer
Even now, I seen huge decrease of chatter on this forum about room scale.  But the big indicator is You Tube- nearly no new videos showing off any significant room scale use.  Sometimes a vid of someone taking a step or two in either direction.  Zenbane, I AM a gambling man and I win far more than I lose.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
People who win more than they lose don't actually have to tell people on the Internet that they win more than they lose. A wager in this discussion doesn't involve luck, it involves insight and perception. Dice and cards are a safer bet.

If you look at my post history from over a month ago, you will find me all over this forum proclaiming that roomscale is a gimmick. So I do agree with you there.

This is the image I use to illustrate roomscale,




That's what I see in my mind every time a Vive users comes trolling.

However, even a gimmick has a place in the free market. The HTC Vive is built around roomscale, and there is no indication that the HTC fanbase is going to abandon their product anytime soon. So your prediction isn't based on any known or observable information. Not to mention that Oculus is working on roomscale as well (Lighthouse vs Constellation). The reason you don't see much roomscale conversation here is because this is the Oculus Forum not the HTC Vive forum. If you wanna see lots of roomscale discussion then head on over to Steam or Reddit.

If you end up being right then I would probably be a little happy, since I don't really care about roomscale. However, I'm not the kinda person to let my bias lead me to making a bad wager, na' mean?

Pablito
Heroic Explorer
Zenbane. you commented about something I said on a post by a person names Cyril.  Are you stalking me?  I'll have you know I'm heterosexual!  Save it for Craigs List!!  -too funny!